- Joe Melson
Joe Melson (born May 1935), is an American
singer and a BMI award winningsongwriter .Melson was born in Bonham, the seat of Fannin County in northeast
Texas . He was reared on afarm until he was sixteen. He attendedhigh school inGore, Oklahoma , and in Chicago before he returned to Texas to study at the two-yearOdessa College in Odessa, the seat of Ector County. He studied and played music as a teenager and fronted arockabilly band called The Cavaliers.Beginning in 1957, first at his home in
Midland, Texas , and then inNashville, Tennessee , Melson teamed up with a virtual unknown by the name ofRoy Orbison , with whom he would write a string of hits forMonument Records . Prior to their collaboration, Orbison had been solely a rockabilly performer. Although Melson himself was rooted in that music genre, he had begun writingrhythm and blues songs. Melson recognized the potential in Orbison's voice, encouraging the singer to explore its power through their first collaboration, "Only the Lonely ". What resulted onMarch 25 ,1960 , was the firstoperatic rock ballad in thehistory ofpopular music . The song went to #2 on theBillboard Hot 100 charts in the United States and to #1 in Britain, which launched Orbison to international musical stardom. Not only did that song influence Orbison to write such operatic ballads as "In Dreams", but a few months later it also induced Orbison's friendElvis Presley to record "It's Now or Never", based on the Italian opera-influenced ballad "'O Sole Mio ".Melson and Orbison followed up with similar sounds such as the dramatic "Running Scared" that went to #1 in the USA. The result of their collaborative efforts produced such songs as:
*"Uptown" (1960)
*"Only the Lonely " (1960)
*"Blue Angel" (1960)
*"I'm Hurtin"' (1961)
*"Running Scared" (1961)
*"Crying" (1961)
*"The Crowd" (1962)
*"The Actress" (1962)
*"Gigolette" (1962)
*"Blue Bayou " (1963)
*"Blue Avenue" (1964)
*"Raindrops" (1964)
*"Lana" (flip-side "Laugh") in 1964
*"Cry Softly Lonely One" (1967)
*"Harlem Woman" (1972)"Lana" was originally written for Virgil Johnson's
The Velvets , based in Odessa. Orbison also later recorded "Lana".Between 1960 and 1963, Melson recorded several singles of his own (the best known being "Hey Mister Cupid") for Hickory Records and also through
Acuff-Rose Music wrote songs for some of that label's other artists includingDan Folger . He then recorded a few songs for theEMP Records label in 1964 and 1965 that achieved limited success. His last hit collaboration with Orbison came in 1963 with the writing of "Blue Bayou " although some of their cooperative efforts would be recorded in later years. The two got together again between 1971 and 1975, but while the venture did not yield the commercial success their collaboration once had, it brought such memorable songs as "Harlem Woman".Over the years, Melson continued to perform at rockabilly and nostalgia festivals, and in 2002 he was inducted into the
International Rock-A-Billy Hall of Fame inJackson, Tennessee , the home and final resting place of a "father" of rockabilly,Carl Perkins .External links
* [http://www.joemelson.com Official site]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.